Article, method, system and apparatus for decentralized creation, distribution, verification and transfer of valuable documents

ABSTRACT

The invention described herein utilizes a universally known and accepted unique item that is independently identifiable and valuable so as to be constituted for difficulty of counterfeiting as an authenticator item. The identity of this item is included in an authorization calculation which can only be accomplished by an authorizing issuing authority. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the authenticator is a serial numbered item such as a currency bill or note. The document may be created in a decentralized fashion using ordinary plain paper and the document may even take electronic or other forms. The issuing authority must have the critical or important details of the document and must authorize the creation of the document before it can be created. Further the document&#39;s authenticity may be verified without communication back to the issuing authority. The invention allows the creation of valuable negotiable business documents at locations throughout the world and the creation may be done by any of an issuing authority, an agent of the issuing authority, a bearer and even the buyer. The invention described allows cancellation to prevent negotiation of an electronic document regardless of how many copies are extant in computers or other form merely by defacing or destroying the associated authenticator.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention

[0002] The present invention relates to valuable documents such as orderbills of lading, negotiable certificates of cargo insurance, lottery orother valuable tickets, and other such documents that may be bought andsold or otherwise may be subject to transactions that requireverification of authenticity.

[0003] 2. Description of Related Art

[0004] Currently, negotiable documents are subject to copying,alteration and unauthorized creation. Unauthorized creation is possibleeven when the document is printed on serial numbered security papersince the paper stock itself could have been counterfeit or stolen. Forthese reasons, it is usually not possible to verify the authenticity ofsuch a document without communication back to an issuing authority. Oneexample of this nature is U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,619 issued to Schaede. Thedocument of Schaede uses a foil hologram.

[0005] Current practice is in some cases even less secure becausedocuments are not printed on serial numbered security paper due to thecosts of creating, distributing, securing, and tracking the paper andits usage. U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,990 uses a serial numbered currency noteor bill as a lottery input mechanism and prints a receipt which is theevidence that is used to claim a prize. If the same note is played threetimes, and the number derived from the note happens to be selected bythe lottery computer as the winning number, the prize will be dividedthree ways. Thus in this teaching, the note is used only as input toavoid printing tickets, game cards or betting slips and not to verifyauthenticity. To prevent fraud, the receipt must still be printed onspecial paper.

[0006] When an issuing agency issues documents on behalf of multipleissuing authorities, the issuing agent must acquire, securely store, andtrack the paper stock of each issuing authority. This is mitigated onlysomewhat when there is an industry wide common paper stock such as isused for airline tickets.

[0007] The use of serial numbered security paper stock limits theability of legitimate but geographically dispersed participants in atransaction from issuing a document due to the limited distribution ofthe security paper stock. Also in those instances where a document istime limited, the special paper can not be reused and therefore the costof the paper becomes significant.

[0008] An example of the current art in electronic commerce is U.S. Pat.No. 6,032,150 issued to Nguyen. This patent describes a system forallowing a server to grant or deny access of information in a webdocument based upon a serial numbered program applet. Another examplerelating to electronic commerce is U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,677 issued to Foxet al. Telecommunication at the moment of an access request isinherently required for these patented methods to function.

[0009] A further example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,750,972 issued to Botvin.Botvin describes a document for conducting electronic financialtransactions using either paper or electronic facsimile transmission ofdrafts drawn on a drawee bank. Again there is no means provided for athird or fourth party to verify authenticity without contacting thedrawer/payee.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0010] The above described and other limitations of the current systemsbeing used to handle valuable document transactions are diminished oreliminated by the instant invention which allows a valuable document tobe created in a decentralized fashion using ordinary plain paper. Thedocument may even take electronic or other forms. Such valuable documentcreated using the invention may only be created with the knowledge andspecific authorization of the issuing authority. Further the document'sauthenticity may be verified without communication back to the issuingauthority.

[0011] An advantage of the present invention is that it provides asystem and method allowing the creation of valuable negotiable businessdocuments at locations throughout the world. The creation may be done byany of an issuing authority, an agent of the issuing authority, a bearerand even the buyer.

[0012] A further advantage of the invention is that the issuingauthority must have the critical or important details of the documentand must authorize the creation of the document before it can becreated.

[0013] A still further advantage of the invention is that anyone who isconsidering a purchase of a document created according to the instantinvention has the ability to verify that the document is complete,authorized, negotiable and unaltered. Such verification can beaccomplished by a prospective purchaser even when telecommunications ofany type is not possible at the time of verification.

[0014] A special advantage exists with respect to retired or cancelednegotiable electronic documents in that once an electronic document hasbeen transmitted through various computers, it becomes impractical to beable to assure ones self that it can no longer be presented for value toan unsuspecting party. With the instant invention merely defacing ordestroying the associated authenticator prevents negotiation of anelectronic document.

[0015] These and other advantages are obtained by the instant inventionthrough the means, method and system described hereinafter utilizing auniversally known and accepted unique item that is independentlyidentifiable so as to be constituted for difficulty of counterfeiting.The identity of the authenticator is included in an authorizationcalculation which can only be accomplished by an authorized issuingauthority. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the authenticatoris a serial numbered item such as a currency bill or note.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0016]FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a valuable document according to theinvention.

[0017]FIG. 2 is a system block diagram showing decentralized creationand verification of a valuable document according to the invention.

[0018]FIG. 3 is a flow diagram showing the steps of creating a valuabledocument according to the invention.

[0019]FIG. 4 is a flow diagram showing the steps of verifying theauthenticity of a valuable document according to the invention.

[0020]FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a workstation in accordance with apreferred embodiment of the invention.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

[0021] With reference to FIG. 1, a example valuable document 11 is shownas a printed paper document. Document 11 exemplifies any of a number ofdocuments including order bills of lading, negotiable certificates ofcargo insurance, lottery or other valuable tickets and other equivalentdocuments. It will also be understood that document 11 is not limited toa paper printed document but may be a document displayed on a computerscreen or another intelligible form conveyed to a person who may beasked to accept the document 11 for value, such as in the transfer of anegotiable document.

[0022] Document 11 must of course have legible information 13 which isusually in the form of text but may also be graphical in nature. All orperhaps only some of the legible information 13 will be information 15that is critical to a transaction. Other portions of information 13 maybe non-critical transaction information, form information, instructionson how to complete filling out the document and so forth. The criticallegible information 15 may include price, commodity or cargo identity,volume, weight, quality and other information that will allow a personaccepting the document to make a judgment as to the value of thedocument being negotiated.

[0023] In order to accomplish the advantages of the invention, adescription 17 of an authenticator token is needed and it is mostconvenient if such description is made part of the document for ease ofverification by the person accepting the document. The authenticator ispreferably a well known and accepted item such as a United States twentydollar bill which can be tested for counterfeit status and therefore isunique. The description 17 of the authenticator preferably includes aserial number of the authenticator. A serial number is simple to includein an authentication calculation and is a form of uniquenessidentification that is widely accepted.

[0024] Document 11 also preferably includes encrypted information 19that is an encrypted derivation from information 15 and 17. Theinformation 15 and 17 and the encrypted information 19 in the preferredembodiment of FIG. 1 is in the form of a bar code on a printed document11. Any bar coded information can be scanned in to a computerworkstation or personal digital assistant verification device that isbeing used to verify the authenticity of a document 11. Non-bar codedinformation can be entered into the verification device by other meanssuch as keying, machine recognizable scanned image, or machinerecognizable dictation.

[0025] Document 11 also is shown in FIG. 1 with a United States twentydollar bill 21 attached with a paper clip near the bottom of thedocument. This bill 21 is the authenticator for document 11. When theauthenticator 21 is present with the document 11, the document 11 can beverified to be the negotiable document. When the authenticator 21 is notpresent with the document 11, the document 11 may be verified to be anaccurate copy of the negotiable instance of the document 11 but is notnegotiable. There is only one negotiable instance of document 11 and tobe the negotiable document, the document must have the uniqueauthenticator present with the document. When a currency bill such as atwenty dollar bill is used as the authenticator, it must be surrenderedwith the document during a transaction. The value of the document 11 isthen of course increased by the intrinsic value of the authenticator.Thus the value of document 11 in FIG. 1 is the stated value plus the $20value of its authenticator.

[0026]FIG. 2 shows a document creation station 211 having a display, akeyboard and a printer 213. Whoever is creating the document enters thecritical plain text 15 for insertion into the document 11. Other plaintext 13 may already be in a standard form in station 211 or it also maybe entered by the creator from the keyboard. The description of theauthenticator to be used is then obtained. The description may bealready in the possession of the creator or it may be obtained viacommunication from a potential bearer who may be located anywhere. Inthe FIG. 2, a communication 215 is used to obtain a description “UStwenty dollar bill 12345” from a future bearer at a location 205. Thedescription will be provided by a person or machine via communication orby sending a facsimile image of the authenticator etc. In this FIG. 2,the serial number “12345” of the twenty dollar bill 21 is part of thedescription 17 of the authenticator 21.

[0027] After creating the critical text 15 and obtaining theauthenticator description 17, these two items of information are sent toa computer 219 at an issuing authority location 203, where the issuingauthority synthesizes encrypted information 19. The issuing authoritymay alter the critical text before synthesizing encrypted information19. For example, the issuing authority may want to add its own accountinformation, change or add details, etc.

[0028] At the issuing authority, the text 15 and the description 17 arehashed in the preferred embodiment, to obtain a hash result. The hashresult is then encrypted with a private key of a public/private key pairto obtain encrypted information 19. It will be understood that hashingis a convenient but not a necessary step in practicing the instantinvention. It will also be understood that other more complex andperhaps more secure encryption processes may be employed to obtainsecurity information 19 if desired.

[0029] This encrypted result is then sent to the creating location 201for inclusion into the document 11 as the security information 19. Ifthe issuing authority altered the critical text 15, it too is sent backfor inclusion in document 11. The document 11 is now complete and may beprinted at printer 213 for hard copy mail delivery or deliveredelectronically to a bearer for use in a subsequent commercialtransaction. Note that the bearer location 205 need not be a fixedlocation but it is only necessary that the authenticator, in this case a$20 bill, be conveyed so as to be present when the document 11 ispresented for authentication verification and negotiation at a verifylocation 207 where a transaction may occur.

[0030] At the verify location 207, critical text 16 is taken from adocument 12 and a description 18 of an authenticator 21 is taken fromthe document 12 that is presented for verification. The text 16 and thedescription 18 are hashed, at a personal digital assistant 223 forexample, to obtain a trial hash result. Also the encrypted securityinformation 20 is decrypted using the public key of the authorizedpublic/private key pair to obtain the decrypted hash result that hadbeen calculated at the issuing authority location 203. When the trialhash result and the decrypted hash result agree, the critical portionsof the document 12 are verified to be an unaltered copy of the criticalportions of the document 11 created by the creator at location 201. Ofcourse, if the trial hash and the decrypted hash do not agree, eitherthe document has been altered or it is in some other way not what it ispurported to be.

[0031] The person receiving the document 12 then will compare thedescription of the authenticator 18 with the authenticator 21 presentedwith document 12. In this example, the authenticator 21 is a US twentydollar bill which can be tested for counterfeit status using the sametechniques applied by cashiers everywhere. When the bill 21 isdetermined to be genuine with the correct serial number, the receivingperson will know that the combination of the unaltered document and theauthenticator is the one and only negotiable instance of document 11 andcan be honored. The method described above allows cancellation toprevent negotiation of an electronic document regardless of how manycopies are extant in computers or other form merely by defacing ordestroying the associated authenticator.

[0032] Referring now to FIG. 5, a preferred embodiment of a workstation211 and 223 is shown in block diagram form. The physical form of theworkstation may be a personal computer, a personal digital assistant orother convenient embodiment. The workstation comprises, in addition tosupporting elements such as power supply etc., random access memory 511,a central processing unit (CPU) 513, bus 515 and input output (I/O)adapters 517 through 529. Memory 511 may comprise any known type of datastorage and/or transmission media, including magnetic media, opticalmedia, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), a dataobject, etc. Moreover, memory 511 may reside at a single physicallocation, comprising one or more types of data storage, or bedistributed across a plurality of physical systems in various forms. CPU513 may likewise comprise a single processing unit, or be distributedacross one or more processing units in one or more locations, e.g., on aclient and server, but are usually located in a single location. I/O 517through 529 may comprise any known type of input output device circuitryand program control code. Adapter 517 connects display 512. Adapter 519connects keyboard 514. Adapter 521 connects scanner 516. Adapter 523connects a direct access storage device such as mass storage disk drive520. Adapter 525 connects the media reader 522 having slot 518 whichreceives media 524 containing programmed logic 526. Adapter 527 connectsa communication device such as a modem or local area network 528.Adapter 529 connects a printer 213 to workstation 211. Bus 515 providesa communication link between each of the components in the workstationand likewise may comprise any known type of transmission link, includingelectrical, optical, radio, etc. In addition, although not shown,additional components, such as cache memory, etc., may be incorporatedinto the workstation.

[0033] It is understood that the present invention can be realized inhardware, and/or a combination of hardware and software. A typicalcombination of hardware and software could be a general purpose computersystem with a computer program that, when being loaded and executed,controls the computer system such that it carries out the methodsdescribed herein. The present invention can also be embedded in acomputer program product, which comprises all the features enabling theimplementation of the methods described herein, and which—when loaded ina computer system—is able to carry out these methods. Computer program,software program, security or verification software, in the presentcontext mean any expression, in any language, code or notation, of a setof instructions intended to cause a system having an informationprocessing capability to perform a particular function either directlyor after either or both of the following: (a) conversion to anotherlanguage, code or notation; (b) reproduction in a different materialform.

[0034]FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a method for preparing a documentaccording to the invention. The first step at block 311 is to obtain orcreate critical plain text 15 shown in FIG. 1 and insert the plain text15 into the document 11. A next step at block 313 is to obtain or createa unique description 17 of the authenticator. In this preferredembodiment, the authenticator is a twenty dollar bill 21 having a serialnumber 12345. The description 17 is inserted into the document.

[0035] At block 315, the plain text 15 and the description 17 are sentto an issuing institution for use in security calculations. Block 317represents the next step of calculating a hash value of the criticalplain text 15 and the description of the authenticator 17. Thecalculation of a hash value is not crucial to the invention but isconvenient when using currently known encryption techniques in thatencryption of a hash value requires less time than would be required toencrypt the raw information 15 and 17 directly. Further, the encryptedhash is usually a shorter communication message than encryption of theraw data would be. For these and possibly other reasons, calculation andencryption of a hash is a preferred embodiment. The output of the hashstep need not be shorter nor different from the input.

[0036] Block 319 shows the step of encrypting the hash value calculatedin block 317 using the private key of a public/private key pair and analgorithm such as that described in ANSI standard X9.31. The result ofthe step performed at block 319 is encrypted information which is thensent at block 321 to the place where it will be available when needed toverify the authenticity and originality of the document. If the documentis to be a printed paper document, the encrypted information 19 will besent to the creating location for printing on document 11. If thedocument is electronic, the encrypted security information may be sentdirectly to a verifying location such as location 207 where it remainsavailable for use when the document 12 is presented of negotiation.

[0037] At block 323 the document is delivered to the bearer as evidenceof value. As stated herein above, the document may be an order bill oflading or a negotiable certificate of cargo insurance which has value tothe shipper and can be exchanged for payment, by a financialinstitution, for the shipment which has been delivered to the carrier.

[0038] Referring now to FIG. 4, the sequence of acts that will beperformed at a verify location 207 regarding a document 12 beingpresented for negotiation is shown in flow diagram form. Presentment canbe made in person, by mail, by facsimile or by electronic means. Atblock 411 the document and the authenticator are obtained by the partyat verify location 207 who is being asked to accept the document 12 forvalue. If the document is electronic, the document will be received in acommunication and stored in a computer or PDA 223. When document 12 is apaper document, the authenticator 21 can be an attachment to document 12or at least presented at the same time. Alternately, the accepting partymay have provided the authenticator description information 17 to thedocument creator at location 201 or directly to the issuing institutionat location 203 and therefore the accepting party may already be inpossession of authenticator 21.

[0039] The next act shown at block 413 is to calculate a hash ofcritical text 16 and authenticator description 18 to obtain a trial hashresult 415. Block 417 shows the decryption of the encrypted securityinformation 20 using the public key corresponding to the private key ofthe public/private key pair used by the issuing institution to generatethe encrypted security information field 20. Decryption of unmodifiedencrypted security information 20 will yield the hash result 318generated at step 317 of FIG. 3.

[0040] These hash results 415 and 318 are then compared at block 419.The comparison is then tested at block 421 and if they do not agree, thedocument 12 is not the an authentic copy of document 11 as representedin block 423 where “not authentic” is displayed at the verify location207. If they do agree, as represented in block 425, document 12 is anauthentic copy of document 11 and “authentic copy” is displayed.

[0041] To determine whether document 12 is the negotiable instance ofdocument 11 to be accepted for value, the party at verify location 207then enters into computer 223 at block 427, the description and serialnumber of authenticator 21 presented with document 12. The computercompares the description 18 from the document 12 with the descriptionentered at block 427. If they agree at block 429, a message is displayedat block 431 indicating that document 12 is the only authenticnegotiable instance of document 11 and can be accepted for value. Ifdescriptions 18 and the description entered at block 427 do not agree,the authentic copy message may continue to be displayed indicating tothe party at verify location 207 that the negotiable document 11 isstill extant and document 12 should not be accepted for value. It willbe understood that the description and serial number of authenticator 21presented with document 12 can be manually compared with the description18 from document 12 or a computer or other aid such as an optical toolcan be employed to advantage.

[0042] Having described the system, apparatus and method of theinvention, it will be understood by those skilled in the art of computersystems that many additional modifications and adaptations to thepresent invention can be made in both embodiment and application withoutdeparting from the spirit of this invention. For example, although theinvention has been described with respect to certain applications, theinvention is applicable to other uses in the verification of documents.Like wise, the preferred embodiment employs paper documents andelectronically displayed documents but the invention is equallyapplicable to documents that need not be displayed, and accordingly, adocument in a computer or an alternative mechanism may be used.Accordingly, this description should be considered as merelyillustrative of the principles of the present invention which allows theverification of the authenticity of a unique instance of a documentusing a universally known and accepted unique item that is independentlyidentifiable and is constituted for difficulty of counterfeiting and notin limitation thereof.

What is claimed is:
 1. A document comprising: critical text forpresenting important information; a description of a separateauthenticator item; security information comprising a result of acalculation including the critical text and the description of theauthenticator.
 2. The document of claim 1 wherein the securityinformation is presented in human readable form.
 3. The document ofclaim 1 wherein the security information is presented in computerreadable form.
 4. The document of claim 1 wherein the securityinformation is presented in computer readable bar code form.
 5. Thedocument of claim 1 wherein the description of authenticator includes aserial number of the described authenticator.
 6. The document of claim 1wherein the critical text includes the description of the authenticator;7. The document of claim 1 wherein the document is in printed paper formfurther comprising: a critical text area for presenting critical textand the description of the authenticator; and a security informationarea for presenting the security information.
 8. The document of claim 7further comprising the authenticator attached thereto.
 9. The documentof claim 7 further comprising an authenticator in the form of a monetarybill attached thereto.
 10. The document of claim 9 further comprising: aplain text area for presenting non-critical text.
 11. A method ofpreparing a document for later verification of authenticity comprisingthe steps of: placing critical information in a critical field of thedocument; calculating security information by combining the criticalinformation and a description of a unique authenticator using acryptographic security information function; placing the securityinformation in a security information field of the document.
 12. Themethod of claim 11 further comprising the steps of: placing adescription of the authenticator in the critical field of the document.13. The method of claim 12 wherein the description of authenticatorincludes a unique identifier of the authenticator.
 14. The method ofclaim 11 further comprising the steps of: placing a description of theauthenticator in a description of authenticator field of the document.15. The method of claim 14 wherein the description of authenticatorincludes a unique identifier of the authenticator.
 16. The method ofclaim 11 wherein the security information is placed in the securityinformation field of the document in human readable form.
 17. The methodof claim 11 wherein the security information is placed in the securityinformation field of the document in computer readable form.
 18. Themethod of claim 11 wherein the security information is placed in thesecurity information field of the document in computer readable bar codeform.
 19. The method of claim 11 wherein the document is in printedpaper form and the steps of placing further comprise printinginformation on the paper document.
 20. The method of claim 19 furthercomprising the step of attaching the authenticator to the paperdocument.
 21. A method of verifying authenticity of a documentcomprising the steps of: calculating trial security information bycombining critical information from the document and a description of anauthenticator associated with the document; comparing the trial securityinformation with a issuer security information read from the document;determining that the document is an authentic negotiable document whenthe trial security information agrees with the issuer securityinformation read from the document and the bona fide authenticator ispresent with the document; and determining that the document is anauthentic copy of the negotiable document when the calculated securityinformation agrees with the security information read from the securityinformation field and the authenticator is not present with thedocument; and determining that the document is not an authentic copy ofthe negotiable document when the calculated security information doesnot agree with the security information read from the securityinformation field.
 22. The method of claim 21 further comprising thesteps of: obtaining the critical information from the document andobtaining the description of an authenticator associated with thedocument from the document.
 23. The method of claim 21 furthercomprising the steps of: obtaining the critical information from thedocument and obtaining the description of an authenticator associatedwith the document from information about the document, entered by aparty being asked to accept the document.
 24. System for creating adocument for later verification of authenticity and negotiationcomprising: a creating workstation for receiving and placing criticalinformation in a critical field of the document; a communication networkconnected to the creating workstation for communicating the criticalinformation from the creating work station to an authorizing computer;the authorizing computer connected to the communication network forcalculating security information by combining the critical informationand a description of an authenticator using a cryptographic securityfunction; the creating workstation connected to the communicationnetwork for receiving the security information and placing the securityinformation in a security information field of the document.
 25. Thesystem of claim 24 wherein: the creating workstation is connected to thenetwork for communicating the description of the authenticator to theauthorizing computer.
 26. The system of claim 24 wherein: A bearerworkstation is connected to the network for communicating thedescription of the authenticator from a future bearer to the creatingworkstation.
 27. The system of claim 24 wherein: A bearer workstation isconnected to the network for communicating the description of theauthenticator from a future bearer to the authorizing computer.
 28. Thesystem of claim 24 wherein: An acceptor workstation is connected to thenetwork for communicating the description of the authenticator from afuture acceptor of the document to the creating workstation.
 29. Thesystem of claim 24 wherein: an acceptor workstation is connected to thenetwork for communicating the description of the authenticator from afuture acceptor of the document to the authorizing computer.
 30. Thesystem of claim 24 further comprising: an acceptor workstation havingreading means for reading critical information and security informationfrom the document and calculating trial security information from thecritical information and a description of an authenticator presentedwith the document, the acceptor workstation comparing the securityinformation and the trial security information to determine authenticityof the document.
 31. A computer program product comprising computeruseable media having computer program logic recorded thereon to preparea document for later verification of authenticity, the computer programproduct comprising: means for placing critical information in a criticalinformation field of the document; means for calculating a securityinformation by combining the critical information and a description of aunique authenticator using a security information cryptographicfunction; means for placing the security information in a securityinformation field of the document.
 32. The computer program product ofclaim 31 further comprising: means for placing a description of theauthenticator in the critical information field of the document.
 33. Thecomputer program product of claim 32 wherein the means for placing adescription of the authenticator also places a serial number of theauthenticator.
 34. The computer program product of claim 31 furthercomprising: means for placing a description of the authenticator in adescription of authenticator field of the document.
 35. The computerprogram product of claim 34 wherein the means for placing a descriptionof the authenticator also places a serial number of the authenticator.36. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein the means forplacing the security information places the security information in thesecurity information field of the document in human readable form. 37.The computer program product of claim 31 wherein the means for placingthe security information places the security information in the securityinformation field of the document in computer readable form.
 38. Thecomputer program product of claim 31 wherein the means for placing thesecurity information places the security information in the securityinformation field of the document in computer readable bar code form.39. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein the means forcalculating a security information combines the critical information, aserial number of the authenticator and the description of anauthenticator using the cryptographic security information function. 40.The computer program product of claim 31 further comprising: means forreceiving the description of the authenticator from a party who is inpossession of the authenticator and will accept the document.
 41. Acomputer program product comprising computer useable media havingcomputer program logic recorded thereon for verifying authenticity of adocument, the computer program product comprising: means for calculatinga security information by combining critical information from a criticalinformation field of the document and a description of an authenticatorassociated with the document using a security function; means forcomparing the calculated security information with a securityinformation read from a security information field of the document;means for determining that the document is an authentic negotiabledocument when the calculated security information and the securityinformation read from the security information field are equal and theauthenticator is present with the document; and means for determiningthat the document is an authentic copy of the negotiable document whenthe calculated security information and the security information readfrom the security information field are equal and the authenticator isnot present with the document; and means for determining that thedocument is not an authentic copy of the negotiable document when thecalculated security information and the security information read fromthe security information field are not equal.
 42. The computer programproduct of claim 41 further comprising: means for obtaining the criticalinformation from the document and obtaining the description of anauthenticator associated with the document from the document.
 43. Thecomputer program product of claim 41 further comprising: means forobtaining the critical information from the document and obtaining thedescription of an authenticator associated with the document frominformation about the document, entered by a party being asked to acceptthe document.
 44. A method of canceling a document created by performingthe steps of: placing critical information in a critical informationfield of the document; calculating security information by combining thecritical information and a description of a unique authenticator using acryptographic security information function; placing the securityinformation in a security information field of the document; byperforming one of the steps of: defacing the unique authenticator; anddestroying the unique authenticator.